


I could drown myself in someone like you

by blafard



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andrew Minyard Has Feelings, Andrew Minyard Loves Neil Josten, Andrew coming to terms with Neil loving him and never leaving, Canon Compliant, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Light Angst, M/M, Neil Josten loves Andrew Minyard, Post-Canon, Smoking, im sad and soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:26:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26560636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blafard/pseuds/blafard
Summary: Love was always something that came with a certain condition in Andrew's life, something heavy he had to shoulder, something to weigh him down until he lost himself in the process.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 6
Kudos: 89





	I could drown myself in someone like you

**Author's Note:**

> fic title and the fic based on the song "impossible" by nothing but thieves

Loving Neil Abram Josten was a terrifying thing, a thing all encompassing and _too big_ to fit behind the space of Andrew's ribs -- too grand to make a place for _Neil_ in between the space of the fine bones protecting Andrew's heart.

Sometimes, late at night when everyone had already gone to bed, long-lost to the world of dreams where _everything_ was possible, Andrew watched Neil's chest rise and fall in a steady, hypnotizing rhythm Andrew never tired of and thought about how he would do anything -- fight anyone, kill if necessary, leave behind people he had started to call _family_ \-- to keep this impossible man in his life.

Then he thought about how foolish he had become and left the room.

* * *

Love was always something that came with a certain condition in Andrew's life, something heavy he had to shoulder, something to weigh him down until he lost himself in the process.

At first, it was: _stay quiet and make yourself as small as possible and I might grow to love you_ with his foster families.

Then it was: _suffer in silence while he lays claim to your body in a way you never wanted him to,_ to stay with Cass -- a condition that almost killed him.

With Aaron, it was: _make a promise to stay with me and l will protect you_ \-- only for him to move on and leave.

Then Neil -- a lie on two incredible runners legs, eyes as cold as the sky in winter and hair as striking as an alight fire -- stumbled into his life and gave him half-truths that made an entire lie of a boy, into a real man, who struggled with panic attacks and had scars on his body Andrew knew better than anything else on this world.

Love with him didn't have any conditions, but Andrew still waited for the other shoe to drop.

* * *

Some days, when Andrew had to put space between him and the marvelous creature that was one striker with too blue eyes, he liked to smoke his way through half a package of cigarettes to clear his head, to get rid of all his demons trying to prob at old, still tender scars in his mind.

Neil didn't like him withdrawing as much as he did.

Neil didn't like Andrew smoking so much his voice sounded rough for days after.

Neil didn't know that Andrew had to find a way to cope with unwanted memories crawling to the surface without cutting his own skin open like he used to do.

Neil wished he could be the one to anchor Andrew to the present, much like Andrew did for Neil on bad days, but Andrew knew that that was too much to ask from a man barely more than a pipe dream.

* * *

The way Neil looked at Andrew when they were sitting in the Maserati, nothing but an endless expanse but empty fields and streets to all sides, made the blond furious on good days and downright murderous on bad.

He couldn't wrap his head around the fact that Neil saw everything good -- protection, safety, truth, love, an entire _future_ he never thought he'd have -- in Andrew of all people.

He couldn't wrap his head around the fact that anyone could look at his broken and battered body, knowing about the memories and hands that had touched his unwilling body, witnessed him high off his mind on meds that made him unpredictable on days he felt like cooperating and suicidal on days he wanted everyone to leave him alone, with such tenderness and think _this is the one man I choose to love._

Andrew wasn't sure if that was fates one last big laugh on his expense, but he would do anything to make Neil look at him like that for however long he got to keep him.

* * *

Sunrise, Abram, Death.

Those are truths, Andrew had said once upon a time.

What he didn't say, what made his mouth fill with the taste of blood from sharp teeth biting into his own lips many times since then, was that he feared _and_ knew that he would one day drown himself in Neil and every single one of the tempting lies he presented.

* * *

Nights turned to days, turned to early morning practice and breakfast, to classes he barely attended but still aced, to afternoon practice and long drives with a beautiful man by his side, to kissing that exact same man until he -- the boy with the perfect memory -- forgot his own name and everything he had ever been through, all the horrors he had endured.

As soon as those kisses turned into night practice with two incredibly obnoxious exy players, the memories were back and demanded another sleepless night of Andrew.

* * *

Neil was concerned.

Andrew knew that.

Neil was never good at hiding his secrets from Andrew and now that everything was out in the open he sure as hell wouldn't start now either.

The blond never knew how to respond to people being _concerned_ about him. Why worry about him now, after everything had been said and done, after everything that mattered to him had been taken and given back a little more bruised, a little more battered than before.

He wasn't going to be the first to leave.

He never was.

* * *

"You have been smoking a lot lately," he had said, a little worried, a little cautious.

Andrew had simply scoffed, a roll of his tired eyes enough to make Neil understand how stupid he sounded.

 _Way to state the obvious, junkie_ , he had thought but never said.

* * *

Kisses, much like their _thing_ \-- some might call it a relationship, but Andrew always thought that word was too small to include everything he felt for Neil -- were never about being gentle and tender with each other.

It was always bruising and desperate, hot and too much, _mind-blowing_ and _earth-shattering._

Two broken men trying to fit jagged pieces together to build something, _not whole_ , never entirely whole, but just right to fit them.

* * *

Some days, Andrew itched to tell Neil that he loved him.

Those three little words shouldn't have as much power as they truly had and Andrew knew that they would only ever mean as much as he wanted them to mean with Neil -- a _nuisance_ hellbent on understanding and loving Andrew without ever crossing a single, carefully put up line -- and yet.

And yet he couldn't force them past his lips, no matter how hard he tried.

* * *

Andrew never understood why everyone insisted on calling him _unpredictable, dangerous, a ticking time bomb_ and every other word people used to put on Andrew like a stamp never to be washed or shrugged off, when Neil was the one with the power in his hands to destroy Andrew in a way nobody else ever had the chance to.

* * *

_I love you,_ Andrew thought.

Instead, he said, "Stop looking at me like that," with a voice too soft to be anything but a gentle whisper.

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to the song for the first time a few days ago and since then I couldn't get this idea of Andrew pondering the concept of love in his life out of my head. the title I chose for the fic reminded me a little too much of them and how well they fit together.
> 
> I really hope you liked it! And I'd appreciate comments & kudos <3<3


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